Why do we Need to Understand Users?

• Interacting with technology is cognitive.

• Need to take into account cognitive processes involved and
cognitive limitations of users.
• Provides knowledge about what users can and cannot be
expected to do.
• Identifies and explains the nature and causes of problems
Chapter 4 users encounter.

COGNITIVE ASPECTS • Supply theories, modelling tools, guidance and methods that
can lead to the design of better interactive products.
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Cognitive Processes Attention

Cognition has been described in terms of specific kinds of
• Selecting things to concentrate on at a point in time
processes:
from the range of possibilities around us.
• Attention

• Perception • Allows us to focus on information that is relevant to

• Memory what we are doing.

• Learning • Involves audio and/or visual senses.

• Reading, speaking and listening

• Problem-solving, planning, reasoning and decision-making

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Design Implications for Attention Perception
• Make information salient when it needs attending to at a given stage • Perception refers to how information is acquired from the
of a task. world and transformed into experiences
• Use techniques that make things stand out like colour, ordering,
spacing, underlining, sequencing and animation. • Weller (2004) found people took less time to locate items
for information that was grouped
• Avoid cluttering the interface with too much information. This
especially applies to the use of colour, sound, and graphics: it is – using a border (2nd screen) compared with using
colour contrast (1st screen)
tempting to use lots, resulting in a mishmash of media that is
distracting and annoying rather than helping the user attend to
relevant information. • Some argue that too much white space on web pages is
detrimental to search
• Search engines and form fill-ins that have simple and clean interfaces
are easier to use. – Makes it hard to find information

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Are Borders and White Space

Is Colour Contrast Good?
Better?

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 Activity: Which is the easiest to
Design Implications
read and why?
– Icons should enable users to readily distinguish their meaning
– Bordering and spacing are effective visual ways of grouping information
What is the time? What is the time? – Sounds should be audible and distinguishable
– Speech output should enable users to distinguish between the set of
spoken words.
– Text should be legible and distinguishable from the background.
What is the time? What is the time? Research proper color contrast techniques when designing an
interface:
▪ Yellow on black or blue is fine
▪ Yellow on green or white is a no-no
What is the time?
– Tactile feedback should allow users to recognize and distinguish
different meanings
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Memory Processing in Memory

• Encoding is first stage of memory
• Involves first encoding and then retrieving knowledge.
– determines which information is attended to in the
environment and how it is interpreted.
• We don’t remember everything - involves filtering and
processing what is attended to. • The more attention paid to something…
• The more it is processed in terms of thinking about it
• Context is important in affecting our memory (i.e. where,
and comparing it with other knowledge…
when).
• The more likely it is to be remembered.
• We recognize things much better than being able to – For example, when learning about HCI, it is much better to
recall things. reflect upon it, carry out exercises, have discussions with
others about it, and write notes than just passively read a
book, listen to a lecture or watch a video about it
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 Context is important Recognition Versus Recall
• Context affects the extent to which information can be • Command-based interfaces require users to recall from
subsequently retrieved
memory a name from a possible set of 100s of names

• Sometimes it can be difficult for people to recall

• Graphical interfaces provide visually-based options
information that was encoded in a different context:
▪ “You are on a train and someone comes up to you (menus, icons) that users need only browse through until
and says hello. You don’t recognize him for a few they recognize one
moments, but then realize it is one of your neighbors.
You are only used to seeing your neighbor in the • Web browsers provide tabs and history lists of visited
hallway of your apartment building, and seeing him
out of context makes him difficult to recognize initially” URLs that support recognition memory

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Personal Digital Information Personal Digital Information

Management Management
• Is a growing problem for many users
• Memory involves 2 processes
– vast numbers of documents, images, music files, video
clips, emails, attachments, bookmarks, etc., – recall-directed and recognition-based scanning.
– where and how to save them all, then remembering • File management systems should be designed to
what they were called and where to find them again optimize both kinds of memory processes
– naming most common means of encoding them – e.g. Search box and history list.
– but can be difficult to remember, especially when have • Help users encode files in richer ways
1000s and 1000s
– Provide them with ways of saving files using
– How might such a process be facilitated taking into colour, flagging, image, flexible text, time
account people’s memory abilities? stamping, etc.

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 Memory Aids SenseCam
• SenseCam, developed by Microsoft Research
Labs (now Autographer)
▪ A wearable device that intermittently takes photos
without any user intervention while worn
▪ Digital images taken are stored and revisited using
special software
▪ Has been found to improve people’s memory,
especially those suffering from dementia
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Design Implications Learning

• Involves the accumulation of skills and knowledge involving memory
• Don’t overload users’ memories with complicated
• Two main types:
procedures for carrying out tasks. ▪ Incidental learning (for example, recognizing people’s faces,
what you did today)
• Design interfaces that promote recognition rather than ▪ Intentional learning (for instance, studying for an exam, learning
to cook)
recall. ▪ Intentional learning is much harder!
▪ Many technologies have been developed to help (for example,
• Provide users with various ways of encoding information multimedia, animations, VR)
to help them remember. • Using a computer-based application or YouTube video to understand
a given topic.
– e.g. categories, colour, flagging, time stamping • People find it hard to learn by following instructions in a manual

• prefer to learn by doing

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 Learning Design Implications
• We rely more and more on the internet and smartphones
• Design interfaces that encourage exploration.
to look things up.

• Expecting to have internet access reduces the need and • Design interfaces that constrain and guide learners to

extent to which we remember. select appropriate actions when initially learning.

• Also enhances our memory for knowing where to find it • Link concrete representations and abstract concepts to
online (Sparrow et al,2011) facilitate the learning of complex material.
• What are implications for designing technologies to
support how people will learn, and what they learn?

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Reading, Speaking, and Listening Applications

• Speech-recognition systems (voice user interfaces) allow
• Reading, speaking, and listening are three forms of
users to interact with them by asking questions
language processing. The ease with which people can
– e.g. Google Voice, Siri, and Alexa
read, listen, or speak differs
• Speech-output systems use artificially generated speech
– Many prefer listening to reading.
– e.g. written-text-to-speech systems for the blind and
– Reading can be quicker than speaking or listening.
visually impaired
– Listening requires less cognitive effort than reading or speaking.
• Natural-language systems enable users to type in questions
– Dyslexics have difficulties understanding and recognizing written and give text-based responses
words.
– e.g. Ask search engine, chatbots ….
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 Problem-Solving, Planning, Reasoning
Design Implications and Decision-Making
• Speech-based menus and instructions should be short
• All these processes involve reflective cognition
• Accentuate the intonation of artificially generated speech
– e.g. thinking about what to do, what the options are,
voices
and the consequences
– they are harder to understand than human voices • Often involves conscious processes, discussion with
others (or oneself), and the use of artefacts
• Provide opportunities for making text large on a screen
– e.g. maps, books, pen and paper
for people who find it hard to read small text.
• May involve working through different scenarios and
deciding which is best option
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Design Implications Cognitive Frameworks

• These are used to explain and predict user behavior at the interface
• Provide additional information/functions for users who ▪ Based on theories of behavior
▪ Focus is on mental processes that take place
wish to understand more about how to carry out an • Internal Frameworks: focus primarily on mental processes.

activity more effectively. – Mental models.

– Gulfs of execution and evaluation.

• Use simple computational aids to support rapid decision-
– Information processing.
making and planning for users on the move. • External Frameworks: how humans interact and use technologies in the
context in which they occur

– Distributed cognition.

– External cognition.

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 1. Mental Models 1. Mental Models
• Users develop an understanding of a system through • Craik (1943) described mental models as:
– internal constructions of some aspect of the
learning about and using it.
external world enabling predictions to be made
• Knowledge is sometimes described as a mental model:
– How to use the system (what to do next). • Involves unconscious and conscious processes
– images and analogies are activated
– What to do with unfamiliar systems or unexpected
situations (how the system works). • Deep versus shallow models
• People make inferences using mental models of how to – e.g. how to drive a car and how it works
carry out tasks
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Erroneous Mental Models 2. Gulfs of Execution and

Evaluation
• Two of the many challenges people must overcome to
• Lots of people hit the button for elevators and pedestrian
successfully interact with any system are:
crossings at least twice
– Execution: Taking action to accomplish a specific goal.
▪ Why? Think it will make the lights change faster or
ensure that the elevator arrives! – Evaluation: Understanding the state of the system.

• These challenges are described as the “gulf of execution” and

• What kinds of mental models do users have for the “gulf of evaluation”.
understanding how interactive devices work?
• The gulf of execution: the distance from the user to the
▪ Poor, often incomplete, easily confusable, based on physical system.
inappropriate analogies and superstition (Norman,
• The gulf of evaluation: the distance from the physical system
1983)
to the user.

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 2. Gulfs of Execution and Bridging the Gulfs
Evaluation
• The ‘gulfs’ explicate the gaps that exist between the user
and the interface, without effective design elements to
support users, they can become barriers between users
and their goals.

• Bridging the gulfs can reduce cognitive effort required to

perform tasks.

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3. Information Processing Human Processor Model

• Information is thought to enter and exit the mind • One of the first HCI models to be derived from the

through a series of ordered processing stages. information processing theory was the human
processor model, which modelled the cognitive
processes of a user interacting with a computer.
• Predicts which cognitive processes are involved when a
user interacts with a computer.
• Enables calculations to be made of how long a user will
take to carry out a task (reaction time).

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 Human Processor Model Limitations

• Based on modelling mental activities that happen

exclusively inside the head.

• Do not adequately account for how people interact with

computers and other devices in real world.

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How it Differs from Information

4. Distributed Cognition
Processing
• Concerned with the nature of cognitive phenomena
across individuals, artefacts, and internal and external
representations.

• It involves describing a cognitive system, which entails

interactions among people, the artefacts they use and
the environment they are working in.

• Information is transformed through different media

(computers, paper, heads….).
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 What’s involved
• The distributed problem solving that takes place (including the
way people work together to solve a problem).

• The role of verbal and non-verbal behaviour (including what is

said, what is implied by glances, winks, and what is not said).

• The various coordinating mechanisms that are used (e.g.

rules, procedures).

• The various ways communication takes place as the

collaborative activity progresses.

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Externalizing to Reduce Memory

5. External Cognition
Load
• Concerned with explaining how we interact with external • Diaries, reminders, calendars, notes, shopping lists, to-do lists
representations (e.g. maps, notes, diagrams). – written to remind us of what to do

• The main benefits are: • Post-its, marked emails

– Externalizing to reduce memory load, – where placed indicates priority of what to do

• External representations:
– Computational offloading, and
– Remind us that we need to do something (e.g. to buy something for
– Annotating and cognitive tracing. an occasion)
– Remind us of what to do (e.g. buy a card)
– Remind us when to do something (e.g. send a card by a certain date)

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 Computational Offloading Annotation and Cognitive Tracing
• Annotation involves modifying existing representations
• Computational offloading occurs when we use a tool
through making marks
or device in conjunction with an external
– e.g. crossing off, ticking, underlining
representation to help us carry out a computation.
• Cognitive tracing involves externally manipulating items into
• An example is using pen and paper to solve a math different orders or structures
problem. – e.g. letting students know what they have studied in an
online eLearning package. An interactive diagram can be
used to highlight all the nodes visited, exercises
completed, and units still to study.
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Design Implication Key Points

• Cognition involves several processes including attention,
• Provide external representations at the interface that memory, perception and learning.
can reduce memory load and facilitate computational • The way an interface is designed can greatly affect how well
offloading users can perceive, attend, learn and remember how to do their

▪ For example, information visualizations have been tasks.

designed to allow people to make sense and rapid • Theoretical frameworks, such as mental models and external

decisions about masses of data cognition, provide ways of understanding how and why people
interact with products.

• This can lead to thinking about how to design better products.

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